Marble-

I lost a marble under the couch.

It was swirls of green and blue that could have been the Earth.

It held my whole world. 

My hopes and dreams

Getting dusty in the deep

I stretched my fingers, wiggled the will from them 

Reaching for a chance to be alive. 

The broom tried to get it rolling. 

The corner molding held it steadfastly magnetized out of reach.

My coroner was coming to identify me. 

Cut me up piece by piece to answer 

what brought me to this death. 

If he gets that chance he’ll see it wasn’t a cancer that blackened my lungs, 

or a staph infection that overran my system. 

He’ll find it was my imperfect heart tied to an imperfect heart.

If I could reach that shiny marble, I could turn it all around.
I could live behind a picket fence with a golden retriever and tomcat that watch the perimeter and keep my family safe. 

Both arms flail forward and I howl, 

I belly-crawl with kicking legs

I can’t get any closer than this

From that far-off corner, my marble begins to glow. 

It wants to reach me too. 

But I am weak. 

My charisma is less than nothing. 

I couldn’t lure an eyelash that fell off my own face to land on my own cheek. 

I throw a bucket of water in the marble’s direction, 

hoping to wash it back into my empty life. 

I sit up and lean against the far wall. 

Tears overflow,  stuck between finding my marble and death. 

In another world, I’d pick my retirement home the way I picked my nursery school. 

Because a boy I loved was there first waiting for me. 

But in this world, I only hope is that I can dream of another day.

That if I had one day I’d find a reason to live another and another. 

I’d string days into a necklace of prayer beads, 

wrapped around my neck again and again a noose that leads to a life that ends in old age.